Recently I have been finding that I have a few disconnections in my life.

I am, unsurprisingly, no longer happy at work. I have the feeling that I no longer belong here. Motivating myself every day is becoming harder and harder. The work just seems to get more and more, the time to deal with it less and less and the enjoyment fading extremely quickly.

What makes things worse is that I am beginning to feel that I no longer want to do the job for much longer. There is no longer any fulfilment in it for me. I don’t have a clear idea as to what else I want to do though.

In my Christian life I’m feeling a sense of emptiness as well. Yesterday I realised that I haven’t been to chapel since the Sunday before Christmas. Ok, so last week I was due to preach away and let FW doo the sermon, after I led the rest.

Yesterday I was tired after going to Liverpool on Saturday for the football, it was a long day. Yet FW and I talked and I realised that I no longer felt rewarded by the chapel experience. I like the people in our chapel but feel less and less connected. There is something missing from the entire experience.

As I lay in the bath I thought that my chapel life is no longer rewarding because it lacks leadership and real involvement, other than a Sunday morning. With the exception of the Monday night prayer for youth outreach, there is nothing else for me to take part in.

I have also begun to feel that God wants me to do soemthing different. That he has a plan for me that involves more than just being a member of the congregation. Exactly what He has planned I don’t know but I finally feel ready to hand things over and let Him lead me forward.

All I know is that I want things to change and just changing a job or chapel wouldn’t be anything other than a temporary sticking plaster to hide the problem.

I do think differently from women; I also think differently from many men (those who are not MEN!!!!!!).

I care about many things in life but only important things. I leave the little things alone, as they are not worth spending my time on. If little things grow into BIG THINGS then this becomes more important to me but I have noticed that many BIG THINGS also turn into little things again.

Money comes in and money goes out. In the long term these things either balance themselves out…..

or you die.

Health is soemthing that you have little control over. You can’t stop yourself becoming ill or your leg falling off or your bowel turning into a fossilised mammoth. These things also balance themselves out…..

or you die.

Families fall out and make up. Kids grow old and either become ******* scrotes or well adjusted members of society – this is down to luck rather than worry. They balance themselves out….

or you die.

Do you see the process??

Why worry? It only brings on death in a far quicker way. Better to think about things you can have an effect or, solve or choose to ignore. Other things will resolves themselves…..

Reading other people’s blogs recently has made me realise what an easy life I have. I tend not to fret about things and go through life with a feeling of calmness, with occasional bouts of aggressive annoyance.

I have never had a general goal for my life but seem to meander through without too much trouble. I don’t look back with regret at the things I’ve done or the decisions I’ve made. After all I am where I am through the choices I’ve made, or not made.

I had no ambition to get married or have kids. I understand why these things are important to most other people but never really concerned me. The nearest I ever got was when I decided, at 39, that maybe it would be nice to find someone I could settle down with; the rest is history…

When I read posts where people open their hearts due to a failure to achieve certain goals I think how lucky I am, and have been. I can’t say its all been easy or trouble free. I’ve made a few mistakes, some more serious than others but I am happy with where I am.

Where am I going? I don’t know, don’t really care and will leave that to God and FW!!!! I would like some things to be different but they are minor things compared to what life can offer.

I would like to be able to do something that contributes more. Yet work takes up a lot of energy, especially as it is busier and busier but no additional time to do things.

Christmas was a very strange event this year. For the firts time ever FW and I had Christmas on our own. No family, no chapel and not even any Troublesome Trucks. The weather definitely made a difference. Having said that we did have a very enjoyable day and FW cooked her second Christmas ever, which was very good.

A friend visited on Boxing Day and stayed over. I must say that vegetarians are very odd people…

As you can see from FW’s post she managed to knock the first item on her “Things To Do Before She’s Old” list and has enquired about a second. Be prepared for requests for sponsorship to emerge.

We finally got to see my parents on Monday and my sister and her family today. Prezzies are now delivered and received. I’m just waiting for my Kindle to arrive, next week hopefully, and Christmas will be finished for another year.

As many of you may know, today we have had more snow. I know this as it took me 5 hours to get home. In fact it took 1.5 times as long to get home as I spent in work.

It started shortly after I get in. Within 20 minutes we had an inch of snow on the road outside. Even the passing of vans and trcuks made little impression on it. We had reports that trucks were unable to get to us; that ports had not worked over the weekend and some were closing this morning. My boss had regular updates from home and was looking at the camera feed on the M4 in South Wales.

Around 11:00 someone announced that they had to leave. At 11: 15 we had an e-mail from our transport department saying that all trucks were being recalled from South Wales and the South West due to the weather conditions. By 11:30 I decided that I’d leave around 12:00, after finishing some important work off.

Then I had a call from our Regional Director, at 11:50, telling me that I should consider waiting an hoour or so, as things may clear up – but it was up to me. My 2 colleagues who I’d normally carshare with had left 20 minutes earlier. I pointed out that FW had called to advise that her work, in our town, was closing and that buses were stopping; in addition our house is 950ft up from the valley floor.

So I agreed with my boss that I’d leave and promised that I’d let him know about the conditions on the M4. The road from the office to the M49 was one long icerink. The M49 was down to 2/3rds of a usuable lane and the M4 had a 30mph speed limited and two lanes that were only just usable. At 3:15 I received an e-mail from the director advising us that the road outside the office was dangerous.

It is good to know that our bosses take their legal requirement to consider the safety and wellbeing of their staff so seriously.

For the last few days I have been juggling work and Christmas deliveries to customers. Having moved to our office near Isambard Kingdom Brunel’s iron ship from Wales travelling has been fun. So far I have done close to 300 miles in three days and have 2 more afternoons to go.

In order to insure that my work is done I have only gone out for half days. My old boss thought that this was sensible. My new boss keeps talking about “another half day then?” He is currently unhappy because my old boss has complained about him, so I’m stuck in the middle.

I really enjoyed working for my old boss. He was easy going, trusted you to get things done and did everything he could to support you. My new boss is a small minded, bureaucratic, jobsworth. When I have been off I have had nothing but complaints about the service provided. He doesn’t actually manage of us and looks to blame anyone else when things go wrong.

He objects if you use suppliers that he hasn’t worked with and takes every opportunity to complain if things don’t happen according to plan. However if his favourites do the same thing he hides the problems. Our sales people have complained because he does not provide them with competitive rates and he complains that they never bring in new business – yet can’t see he maybe at fault for this.

He was annoyed yesterday because our regional director asked me to quote for a new customer, who is a friend of his. Then today he embarrassed himself as I was leaving by trying to have another dig about me being out tomorrow. He couldn’t understand that I am visiting customers I have brought to the company, or customers who don’t want to deal with him or anyone else. My old boss understood that such people needed to be dealt with differently but my new boss doesn’t. The 2 guys I car share with were very happy to have a laugh at his expense as we drove home.

Unfortunately he is under pressure from our director to improve the way his department works and to show that he is actively supporting the sales team, and not relying on existing customers to increase business.

My delightful wife has posted an openly gratuitous request for brithday messages, following her recent chnage in numerical addition. I would like to point out that this will be her last birthday – her words – and she will now remain her current age forever.

She has also stated compiling a list of things to do before she is 39 (again). Here are a few suggestions:

1. Cook you husband’s tea every night – including nights when he would “cook”.
2. Earn enough money so that he can retire early
3. Visit your friends more – I could do with some peace and quiet
4. Remember to get your husband Meg, Nicole, Michelle or Emma for Christmas.
5. Visit all those nice people in Scotland just don’t warn them we’re coming 🙂
6. Demolish Swansea.
7. Find a way of creating a heating system for the stand at Pontypool Park ready for the coming winter. It was fair nobbling the other week.
8. Buy T&E’s sister a real sheep(s) but don’t tell her husband
9. Invent a mute button for the Troublesome Trucks.
10. Enjoy life!!!!

Yesterday was FW’s almost 40th birthday. I am not allowed to say her true age, as it is locked in a safe within an enigma within a souffle within a vault in a nuclear missile shelter somewhere in South Dakota.

Being the loving, thoughtful husband I am I had worked out what she wanted and had set about arranging things. then I hit problems.

1. Our home broadband has broken. It was working before we went away but is now dead.
2. My work interweb allows access to certain sites but only at specific times in the day.
3. It allowed to buy the present but not access my webmail to download it. Sister’s printer is kaput and my mother’s does not have Adobe Reader. When I tried to download this it failed to connect with the download section of the site.
4. Thankfully I had already bought a card and some flowers from a new fangled thing called a SHOP!!!
5. So I am still unable to access the main part of her present and the second part will not arrive until next week.

Thankfully I have an understanding wife who knows that these things sometimes happen to nice people 🙂

On Friday we drove to Dunstable for the “Wedding of the Month”. Dunstable was everything I remembered, it is like taking a failing Welsh town and dropping it into the prosperous South East of England.

The wedding was held in an old Anglican (Heretic) Church that will celebrtae its 900th anniversary soon. The vicar(ess) apologised for the builder’s rubble outside but said that if she could make us laugh twice then we should contribute towards the rebuilding work.

After the wedding finished I made my apologies and went back to the hotel to watch the Welsh lose to the Australians. This was a good thing as the meal at the reception was lamb – T&E does not eat family members!!!!

I returned for the evening to find FW in a very merry mood. She assured me that this had nothng to do with her efforts (and those of her friends) to drink the EU Wine lake dry.

Sunday saw us heading further East to the deepest, darkest depths of Suffolk. This is a strange county where you almost expect Wicker Men to be burning in the fields or hordes of inbred locals cruising the roads looking for fresh “outsiders” to disembowel.

We had a great end to the journey where the road to the village was closed, about a mile short, and we then had a 5-10 mile detour to reach it.

Many thanks should be expressed to Tiffer and Mrs Tiffer for looking after my wedding ring (for 4 years) and the warm welcome we received.

We were taught the important things in life – Mr Tiffer is only a curate and will not become a vicarage for 3 years; not all Anglicans are heretical backsliders; not all people in Suffolk are inbred; that some children (other than my nephews) are fun.

Many thanks to Abigail for entertaining us with her little giggles and squeeks. Having a small child break into a smile, jump up and down and wave in respone to your wave was fun.

We made it back to South Wales after a 3 drive across the UK. Our SatNav brought us home via Leicestershire and the M42 – thus avoiding the carnage that is the anti-clockwise M25 at the moment.

As many of you may (or may not) know, I work in the transport industry. Well work is a very loose description of what I do. These days it seems to be more about computer input than actually doing any physical work.

The revelation last week that 2 bombs had been found on aircraft in Dubai and East Midlands Airport has got the industry talking. We are already seeing governments inssiting on tighter security controls for cargo.

You see all cargo loaded into passenger aircraft holds has to be x-rayed or physically searched prior to loading. Well that is the theory. Not every country actually does this efficiently and there are always ways around these things, if you are smart, dedicated or willing to bribe someone.

However the rules for cargo only airfcraft are different. This is because only the flight crew are at risk. The industry insists that there is no need to inspect every package that goes onto a cargo aircraft. Plus it would add cost to the process and lead to time delays.

Here is the anomaly with what happened. The package going to Chicago via the UK was only spotted during a security exam at East Midlands. This arrived in the UK on a cargo only flight.

The device found in Dubai was originally said to be on a cargo only flight. However we later found out that the package had actually flown into Doha and then Dubai on passenger flights. So who didn’t do their job properly?

Evidently the package left Yemen without being checked. Then it moved through Doha without any checks. Wouldn’t you expect someone in Doha to check unaccompanied packages that originate somewhere as volatile and unsecure as Yemen?

Now don’t worry! The chance of you dying in a explosion on an airliner are longer than the chance of the engine failing. How often do you hear about that happening?

And now for something from the QI fact of the day from the BBC website:

Princess Alexandra, the aunt of Mad King Ludwig II of Bavaria (1845-86), suffered from the delusion that she had swallowed a glass piano.